It's getting hot. A few weeks
of dry, warm weather, and this whole country is ready to blow away. The
woods are like a pile of shavings. That would be a fine wedding
present--to be cleaned out by fire. Every dollar I've got's in timber."
"Don't be a pessimist," Linda said sharply.
"What makes you so uneasy now?" Stella asked thoughtfully. "There's
always the fire danger in the dry months. That's been a bugaboo ever
since I came to the lake."
"Yes, but never like it is this summer," Benton frowned. "Oh, well, no
use borrowing trouble, I suppose."
Stella rose.
"When Jack comes, I'll be in the library," she said. "I'm going to read
a while."
But the book she took up lay idle in her lap. She looked forward to that
meeting with a curious mixture of reluctance and regret. She could not
face it unmoved. No woman who has ever lain passive in a man's arms can
ever again look into that man's eyes with genuine indifference. She may
hate him or love him with a degree of intensity according to her nature,
be merely friendly, or nurse a slow resentment. But there is always that
intangible something which differentiates him from other men. Stella
felt now a shyness of him, a little dread of him, less sureness of
herself, as he swung out of the machine and took the house steps with
that effortless lightness on his feet that she remembered so well.
She heard him in the hall, his deep voice mingling with the thin,
penetrating tones of Mrs. Abbey. And then the library door opened, and
he came in.
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